Sugru

When I attended Gadget Show Live in 2012 one of my favourite discoveries was a booth selling little sachets of a product I’d never heard of before called Sugru. At the time it seemed a good way to protect my phone without the bulk of a case but in the last 12 months I’ve put it to all sort of uses.

So what is it, the best description from Sugru’s own website

“Sugru is the exciting new self-setting rubber that can be formed by hand. It moulds like play-dough, bonds to almost anything and turns into a strong, flexible silicone rubber overnight”

As I said, my first use was to make corner bumpers for my phone something; I have repeated with my tablet, but I have also used them to repair the split casing on my Fitbit One and to improve the grip on my pen knife. The uses of this wonder substance are almost endless. Once cured for 24 hours the substance almost becomes part of the object, but if you’ve had enough of your mod you can peel it off without leaving any marks.

Sugru has embraced the “Hack” Culture posting the most inventive modification or repairs on their website every month which is a great place to get ideas and tips. Sugru comes in a variety of vibrant colours and you can make other colours and textures by mixing them, again head to the website for instructions and ideas.

The only real gripe I have with Sugru is the way it is packaged they come in 5g Sachets which aren’t really enough to do anything with. Even a simple set of phone bumpers takes two packets mixed together, although this does give you the opportunity to make an exciting and unique colour or pattern

Lastly a warning: we live in a world of over cautious use by dates, that is not the case for Sugru. By the time you get to the sell by date, it is pretty much a useless lump of plastic. However a top tip from the website is to keep it in the fridge which will extend the life from 6 months to almost 18

B and Q recently started stocking Sugru in their stores, or you can buy direct from their website http://sugru.com/

So why not give it a try.

Happy Hacking!

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Can be found somewhere between designing new tech as an electronics engineer or testing new tech as a technology enthusiast. Lives mostly on Twitter, and would love to have a word with you there as @smacula.